Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Must. Horde. Koigu.

I have been knitting for 7 years. Seven years of stitch after stitch. I've been reading Knitty and following knitting blogs for about four years of that time. I've heard people talk about it, but it never quite sunk in with me. I resisted for some ridiculous reason.

We were in NYC this weekend and I decided that I was going to need a complimentary color to go with my newly acquired sock yarn. While doing a little window shopping in Soho I stepped into Purl and there lay before me was a wall of the mysterious Koigu that I had heard so much about. Not only were the colors mind numbingly gorgeous but there was a WALL of that stuff. My credit card jumped out of my purse and snuggled up to a beautiful pink color that matched my sock yarn from the "Represent" day. But I couldn't stop there. Oh no. The colors were too pretty, the wool was too soft, the yarn fumes too strong, and I started loading it into my arms.

Sadly, the husband, better know as the "voice of reason", was also with me and he immediately put a kibosh on the 96 different skeins I was planning on impulse buying. While I restocked the shelf, the husband stepped outside of the very small store saying he needed some air. (Possible yarn fume allergy?) While restocking I saw it lying there, mistocked under a pile (or possibly hidden by another knitter for another time- if it was I apologize!):

It's so pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at the colors. LOOK AT THEM! So, while husband was outside waiting for me to buy the pink skein I had originally gone looking for, I also tucked this into pile while I was buying it, telling myself yarn that pretty needs to have a good home.

We made it down to the street when husband asked the dreaded question: "so how much was the pink yarn?" I answered, "um, $37?". Husband stopped walking, (maybe even breathing), and then asked me again "that one skein of yarn was THIRTY-SEVEN-DOLLARS!?" And then I had to confess, I bought 2 other skeins, but promised that I would not buy any more yarn until his mom comes to visit. (When his mom is here we're going to WEBS and I refuse to be held responsible for my behavior in a yarn warehouse.)

Anyway, I still didn't understand the signifigance of the yarn purchase, I just thought I had procured some pretty colored yarn. But today.... oh people... TODAY I knit with the Koigu and I think that I had my first out of body experience. I can't really put into words how soft it was to touch and how silky the stitches knit up. It was glorious. I was immediately overcome with the desire to buy as much Koigu as I could get my hands on. Do they put some kind of drug in that yarn to create such an immediate desire for it? Is this stuff even LEGAL?

So, I've casted on a new sock that I'm calling the "Candy Necklace" socks- because the colors remind of just that. And- I'm attempting to design my own pattern. Pictured in the pink is the crack like substance known as Koigu and you can see the sock is in the early stages of progress.